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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22646701">Grotesque</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/grammarpolice/pseuds/grammarpolice'>grammarpolice</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Whump, More Hurt Than Comfort, No Plot/Plotless, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Whump, Why Did I Write This?, but there is comfort, kind of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:06:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22646701</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/grammarpolice/pseuds/grammarpolice</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I wanna die.”</p><p>He doesn’t really mean to say it out loud.</p><p>That night he’d dreamt of slashed throats and poisoned tea, and the fact that Martin Whitly doesn't love him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gil Arroyo &amp; Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright &amp; Martin Whitly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>166</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Grotesque</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i'm not really sure how to tag this but please be wary!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“I wanna die.”</em>
</p><p>He doesn’t really mean to say it out loud.</p><p>The first time the thought came to him was at the bottom of an orange pill bottle when he was fourteen.</p><p>It was at two-thirty in the morning on the four year anniversary of his father’s arrest. He was sitting at his desk, blue lamp on the lowest setting, the last of the benzos in his hand.</p><p>That night he’d dreamt of slashed throats and poisoned tea, and the fact that Martin Whitly didn’t love him.</p><p>Malcolm knew that his father wasn’t a man of glory.</p><p>He wasn’t a hero without a cape or a valor citizen, nor was he comfort or a shoulder to cry on. He wasn’t a model parent, and he didn’t cut up sandwiches into triangles and pack school lunches.</p><p>He wasn’t a smile on a rainy day and a hand to hold when times grew tough, because he was the reason the world was hard.</p><p>Martin Whitly was the reason nightmares and monsters terrorized Malcolm in the dark. He was the reason skies were painted black and red like blood, and twenty-three men and women were slaughtered with blades and sharp teeth, fangs.</p><p>And he didn’t love Malcolm.</p><p>The kids at school spat, “Your father’s a bastard.”</p><p>They spoke with venom and kicked his gut, “Psychopaths can’t love.”</p><p>They howled and hissed, “You’re just like him.”</p><p>That’s what JT had meant the first time he’d met Malcolm, too.</p><p>He hadn’t said it blatant, because he’s an adult.</p><p>He hadn’t said it blatant, because he’d shouted it in the bite of his eyes.</p><p>He meant, <em>I don’t trust you</em>, when he refused to shake Malcolm’s hand.</p><p>He meant, <em>Do you like killing, too?</em></p><p>He meant, I<em>t runs in the family, doesn’t it?</em></p><p>He hadn’t said it blatant, because he didn’t need to.</p><p>Malcolm was familiar with the implications of cold irises and suppressed handshakes. He was familiar with sidelong glances and whispers behind closed doors, and the falsified smiles of indifference.</p><p>
  <em>I wanna die.</em>
</p><p>The words used to be heavy and sour on his tongue. They used to burn and leave guilt and bitter poison because he didn’t have it so bad.</p><p>He was alive, even though he didn’t want to be.</p><p>He had a mother and a sister that were still breathing, even when he couldn’t.</p><p>He had a father, even if he doesn’t anymore.</p><p>“Okay,” Gil says. He doesn’t recoil like he’s burned, doesn’t bite back at raw skin and fresh wounds. He blinks. “That’s okay.”</p><p>Malcolm licks his lips. He bites them with the top of his teeth and wishes for a moment that he had fangs sharp enough to draw blood. “I don’t mean that.” He sighs low and deep in his chest, sinking deeper into the barstool.</p><p>Outside, the afternoon sun is peeking from behind building heads, slinking into his apartment from between his blinds. A car horn blares, and there’s a shout. Bus 86 coughs and sputters as it comes to a halt.</p><p>New York City is so very alive.</p><p>“I think you do.” Gil picks at the hem of the suit he wore to the funeral.</p><p>It had been raining when his father's casket was lowered into the ground, and Malcolm had spit on the cemetery dirt.</p><p>No one cried, and no one really cared to be there, and Malcolm knew it. He knew that the world was better off without Martin Whitly in it.</p><p>He wasn’t even sure why they were holding a funeral in the first place.</p><p>The world didn’t care about his father before.</p><p>It didn’t care until night fell and a rope tightened, and headlines flooded internet timelines.</p><p>They read, “The Surgeon Found Dead Monday Night.”</p><p>They read, “Authorities Look Into The Surgeon’s Apparent Suicide .”</p><p>They read, “The Death of a Vile Man.”</p><p>Malcolm tore them up between his teeth. He swallowed them down like shards of glass and punched his television screen until his knuckles bled.</p><p>He stomped down on cemetery dirt and pushed against his mother’s black-clad arm until the clouds parted and the rain came to a halt, and everyone went home except he and the headstone.</p><p>Malcolm ran his fingers over the engraving, between stone as he traced his father’s name, <em>Martin Whitly.</em></p><p>The rock was wet and cold against his bare fingers, <em>Husband, Father.</em></p><p>Not, <em>Beloved Husband.</em></p><p>Not, B<em>eloved Father,</em> because he didn’t love Malcolm.</p><p>
  <em>Psychopaths can’t love.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I wanna die.</em>
</p><p>Gil had been waiting at his car at the edge of the cemetery and he drove Malcolm home.</p><p>“It was a murder,” Malcolm had said, leaning against the window of the passenger's seat. He’d been telling Gil that Martin Whitly wouldn’t kill himself for the past week.</p><p>Martin Whitly wouldn't kill himself, because he loved himself.</p><p>It was obvious.</p><p>It was clear and blatant, tangible and the classic definition of self-obsession, and suicide wasn’t a word in his father’s vocabulary.</p><p>When he’d first brought it up at the crime scene, Gil had replied, “You shouldn't be here, Bright. Let me take you home.”</p><p>Malcolm sucked in a breath, swallowed past ash on his tongue. “How would he have gotten the rope?” His eyes raged with desperation when they met Gil’s, and he could feel it through the sockets in his skull.</p><p>He could feel his wholly fear for Gil’s response and it was pathetic.</p><p>He was pathetic.</p><p>“We’re looking into accomplices.”</p><p>Malcolm had shouted then that it was Martin’s nurse, David, who was the murderer. He thrashed against JT’s hold and he spat with flames that he should know the signs of a killer, he was the spawn of one.</p><p>
  <em>You’re just like him.</em>
</p><p>David later admitted to assisting with the suicide, to garnering the supplies and tying the fucking rope around Martin’s neck, but he didn’t admit to murder and Malcolm didn’t believe him.</p><p>David said, “I felt bad for him.”</p><p>He said, “He was depressed.”</p><p>He said, “He begged me.”</p><p>Malcolm ground out, “Go fuck yourself,” and Gil dragged him from the interrogation room.</p><p>“Doctor Whitly wouldn’t do that, Gil,” Malcolm told him outside of the sixteenth precinct. </p><p>
  <em>Why doesn’t he love me?</em>
</p><p>Gil bit back, “He’s dead, Malcolm.” His tone was stern, but there was no malice behind the words. “He’s dead, and there’s nothing you can do.”</p><p>It was cruel coming from Gil’s lips, even if he hadn’t meant it to be.</p><p>It stung Malcolm like a lash, like bitter winter against open skin, but he gritted his teeth.</p><p>“Go home, spend time with your family. Let us handle this.”</p><p>
  <em>Us, not you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Not you, because Martin Whitly doesn’t love you.</em>
</p><p>The ride from the funeral to Malcolm’s apartment wasn’t far, and it was nice to know that he could visit his father whenever he wanted.</p><p>What a comforting fucking piece of information that he can go visit a rock and a patch of dirt, and speak to the air above a corpse that doesn’t care about him.</p><p>
  <em>I wanna die.</em>
</p><p>Gil says, “I think you mean it.” He pauses for a moment. “And that’s okay.”</p><p>Malcolm yanks an empty pill bottle from across the counter and toys with it between his fingers. “I’m fine, Gil.”</p><p>“You keep saying that, and I keep believing it less and less.” Gil lets out a long breath. “The drinking’s gotta stop.”</p><p>Malcolm blinks. He hadn’t meant to drink before work or before Martin’s funeral. “I don’t even like drinking,” he says bitterly. “My father does.”</p><p>
  <em>You're just like him. </em>
</p><p>“You can’t be getting drunk before work.” Gil sighs. “And you can’t be mixing alcohol and medication, Malcolm. You know that.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>And he does.</p><p>He knows it’s reckless and dangerous, but he can’t bring himself to give two fucks.</p><p>Gil nods, retreating once again to picking at the hem of his tux. “Then why are you doing it?” he asks.</p><p>“I don’t know how else to make it not hurt.”</p><p>The statement is honest and open, and he hates the way it sits tangible in the air.</p><p>His father slaughtered twenty-three people, and Malcolm feels the weight of his loss the most.</p><p>His father hanged himself from the rafters of his cell, and Malcolm feels guilty.</p><p>His father wasn’t capable of love, and that’s all Malcolm ever wanted.</p><p>He shouldn't feel that way because his father was a monster, but he does. Malcolm looks past his father’s fangs and cold-blooded murder and induced terror in the form of nightmares because sometimes he still feels like a fourteen-year-old child.</p><p>Just a child that wants a hero for a father, not a villain. He wants a father that will cut his sandwiches into triangles and hold his hand when he gets scared.</p><p>He wants a father that doesn’t want him dead, a father that didn’t try to murder him when he was ten fucking years old.</p><p>He wants a father that wasn’t in jail and a father who loved his mother, and a father who’s alive.</p><p>He wants a father who’s alive, and who loves him.</p><p>But he doesn’t have a father like that, and he never will, and life still slaps him across the face. Life still shoves rusting iron rods through his ribcage and spits in his face, and it hurts so goddamn bad that he doesn’t know what to do.</p><p>He supposes that’s the point of the alcohol.</p><p>It numbs him, takes the edge off of reality enough that he can at least somewhat construct his face into a convincing enough smile. It makes the burn fade to a sizzle and the hole in his heart vacate just enough so that he feels gnawed empty.</p><p>Gil gently maneuvers the pill bottle from Malcolm’s hand and places his palm in its stead. His flesh is warm against Malcolm’s, and it feels real.</p><p>“I know, kid. I did the same thing for Jackie.”</p><p>But that’s different.</p><p>Jackie was a good person. Jackie was cinnamon buns and spring flowers, and kind tendrils wrapped behind skin and bones. Jackie was goddamn triangle-shaped sandwiches and warm hugs and a hand to hold. She raised the world, not poisoned it.</p><p>Jackie should be grieved over.</p><p>Jackie should be loved, remembered.</p><p>Jackie deserves commemoration, and her loss deserves pain.</p><p>Martin Whitly was evil and a monster in human form. He only loved himself—</p><p>
  <em>Why doesn’t he love me?</em>
</p><p>—no one else.</p><p>The world is better off without him, and that’s why no one cried at his funeral.</p><p>
  <em>“The Death of a Vile Man.”</em>
</p><p>But Malcolm is desperate, and it hurts.</p><p>The alcohol is wearing off now, and it hurts.</p><p>Gil’s hand grounds him as he flounders in uncharted water.</p><p>He’s stuck in the space between life and death and he shouldn’t be.</p><p>He’s suffocating in his own existence for a man who doesn’t even love him.</p><p>“I don’t know what to do. I’m not dead, but I’m not exactly alive either.”</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He’s so fucking pathetic.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>And Malcolm isn’t sure what it is, but he feels himself fall. He crumbles in place and sobs with tears that don’t deserve to be cried. He hangs onto Gil’s arm because it’s a lifeline, and screws his eyes shut in the light.</p><p>“Shhh, it’s okay, I’ve got you.”</p><p>He feels arms wrap around his shoulders and he just cries harder into soft fabric and the smell of Gil.</p><p>“I just wanna fucking die, Gil,” he mumbles into Gil’s neck. “And I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>He doesn't tell Gil that he knows his father committed suicide.</p><p>He doesn't tell Gil that he wishes his father had been murdered instead. </p><p>He doesn't tell Gil that it's because if his father had been murdered instead at least he wouldn't have chosen to leave Malcolm.</p><p>“I don’t know what to do either," Gil admits. "We’re gonna figure it out together.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>what is this? you ask</p><p>i have no idea<br/>\<br/>i literally wrote different versions of this four times and this was the best i could do</p></blockquote></div></div>
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